Vigils Reading – Holy Thursday

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN

THE COVENANT

AND THE EUCHARIST

By St Edith Stein

◊◊◊

We know from the Gospel narratives that Christ prayed as a Jew who

believed in and was faithful to the Law. When he was a child with his parents,

and later with his disciples, he used to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the

appointed times to take part in the festivals that were celebrated in the temple.

He sang joyfully with the pilgrims, “I was glad when they said unto me: We

will go into the house of the Lord”. He recited the ancient prayers of blessing,

which are still said today, for bread, wine, and the fruits of the earth, as the

accounts of the Last Supper bear witness, This was wholly consecrated to the

fulfillment of one of the holiest religious obligations – the solemn Passover meal

which commemorated the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Perhaps it is here

that we are given the deepest insight into the prayer of Christ, as it were the key

which gives access to the prayer of the Church.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke

it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

And he took a cup, when he had given thanks he gave it to them,

saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant,

which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin”

.

The blessing and giving of the bread and wine have become part of the rite

of the Passover meal. But at the Last Supper this blessing and giving takes on a

wholly new meaning. For this is the birth of the Church. Doubtless it was only

at Pentecost that the Church was born a spiritual and visible community. But

here, at the Supper, took place that grafting of the shoot in the vine branch

which made the outpouring of the Spirit possible.

The ancient prayers of blessing became creative words of life on Christ’s

lips. The fruits of the earth became his flesh and blood, filled with his life. The

visible creation into which he was inserted by his incarnation is now bound to

him in a new and mysterious way. The foods that are indispensable for the

growth of the human organism are transformed in their nature, and those

partaking of them with faith are themselves transformed too; incorporated into

Christ in a living union, they are filled with his divine life. The quickening power

of the Word is fused with the sacrifice. The Word becomes flesh to give us that

Life which is his own. He offered himself, and has thus offered the creation

which he ransomed by this offering, as a sacrifice of praise to the Creator.

The Passover of the ancient covenant has become the Passover of the

new covenant, at the Lord’s Last Supper, at the Sacrifice of the Cross, and,

between the Resurrection and the Ascension, at the joyful agape where the

disciples recognized their Lord in the breaking of the bread; and, in the

Sacrifice of the Mass, at Holy Communion.